1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a portable communications device, and more particularly to a folding portable communications device with a data display section.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventionally known portable communications devices such as portable telephones are each constructed with a slim housing with an antenna on its upper surface, near an edge thereof; and a receiver section, a display section, a keyboard section and a transmitter section placed on the front of the housing in that order from the top to the bottom. The display section and the keyboard section make up almost the entire front of the housing of this type of portable telephone. Therefore, increase in the area occupied by either the display section or the keyboard section produces the problem of reduced area occupied by the other.
For instance, the recent trend of portable telephones has been toward models each constructed so as to display the status of the portable telephone and the data received by it in addition to the destined telephone number, the remaining capacity of the battery, etc. on the display section. These portable telephones are each desired to have the greatest possible area for the display section. With portable telephones constructed as mentioned above, however, it is natural that increase in the area of the display section results in the smaller and thus hard-to-use keyboard section.
As a solution to such problems, Japanese Utility Model Law Application Disclosure HEI 6-34347, for instance, suggests a configuration where a receiver is placed over the underside of a display section, with a through-hole formed from the receiver section to the surface of the display section. This configuration, however, makes it difficult to construct a planar display section, and the increased thickness of the overlapped structural portions becomes an obstacle to construction of low-profile portable telephones.
As another solution, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Disclosure HEI 5-211464 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Disclosure HEI 5-260143 each suggest a folding structure where a foldable housing is attached to the main body of a portable telephone, and a keyboard section is provided on the housing section. In addition, according to these conventional structures, a receiver section and a display section are usually provided on the main body, while a transmitter section and a keyboard section are provided on the foldable section. These configurations allow the display section to extend to the same area as the keyboard section. Since the receiver section contains a speaker, however, it is difficult to increase the area of the display section by further reducing the size of the receiver section.